ASGCC Awards $23,000 in Campus Grants

The Associated Students of Glendale Community College granted more than $23,000 to programs, projects and clubs around campus.

During the recent ASGCC legislature meetings, the Associated Students took the advisers’ advice and investigated which projects its grants would fund.

At the Nov. 6 meeting, the legislature thoroughly examined the finance committee’s recommendations for which projects would be funded by the Campus Project Support grants.

Campus Project Support was created by the Associated Students to fund innovative and sustainable projects that would benefit the student body and the college. Although the finance committee initially evaluates each application and recommends how much money should be granted to which programs, the legislature has the final decision.

The first application that the Associated Students debated was the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) club application. The finance committee suggested granting the club $1,250 for 25 Ralph’s gift cards at $50 each to give to students in need of grocery money.

“Don’t we already have the Food for Thought program that is similar to this?” Vice President of Campus Relations Darvill Rodriguez asked right away. Student Activities Coordinator Tzoler Oukayan confirmed that the campus does offer the Food for Thought program that offers food assistance to students.

“I feel that this doesn’t directly affect students [physically] on campus,” said Senator of Administration Cameron McGee, continuing the discussion. “I understand that this is going towards a good cause, but it is called Campus Project Support and it doesn’t directly affect our students [physically] on the campus.”

Senator of Finance Armen Mardirossian defended the finance committee’s recommendation and said, “Basically this is a charity and they [EOPS] wanted to do something that would make them [the students in need] happy.”

After a vote, the grant application was denied with 12 legislature members opposed, one abstaining and four in favor.

Later in the meeting, the next controversial application was the Students Providing Assistance Resources and Knowledge club project. The finance committee recommended granting S.P.A.R.K. $625 for 25 bookstore gift cards at $25 each that would be raffled off to one S.P.A.R.K. student per fundraiser.

Vice President of Finance Arpa Shahijanian said that the Finance Committee thought the S.P.A.R.K. application was a beneficial idea because the increased revenue brought in by the club would create more scholarships, since the money raised at S.P.A.R.K. fundraisers goes to scholarships.

According to Shahijanian, the Finance Committee also thought it the idea would benefit the entire campus because the gift cards are for the bookstore, which brings in money for the campus.

Some legislators had concerns with this application because of its similarity to previous applications that were denied. “It’s like giving someone a scholarship to fund their basic needs,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think its fair if we deny this application because we denied previous applications that had similar concepts.”

Other Associated Student legislators defended the club’s application. “The S.P.A.R.K. program does a lot for the college,” Vice President of Campus Organizations Kevin Dimatulac said. “I feel that providing for these gift cards would help students already at the college and would help a program that helps GCC recruit students.”

After the discussion, the S.P.A.R.K. application was narrowly denied with nine legislators opposed, two abstaining and six in favor.

Other projects that were denied included programs that had already been given a special organizational support (S.O.S.) grant for the same project, programs that already had funding for the project and programs that were too similar to programs already in place.

There were many projects that were approved without much discussion because the legislature agreed with the finance committee’s recommendations. Some of these projects included: repair of the biology department’s microscopes, the Drug and Alcohol Studies T-shirts for a campaign against alcohol and drugs, the transfer center’s bus fees to take students on a tour of Southern California colleges and materials needed for the Rocketry Club’s recent rocket and weather balloon project.

“Great discussion today, I think towards the end you realized the importance of each of you here and what you bring to the table,” Oukayan said at the close of the meeting.

“I know that most of you are new and this is your first time doing this,” said Arman Marukyan, associated student president. “I’m really proud of the way it went. I think it went better than last semester, to be honest, so thank you.”